not broken

I have to tell myself I am NOT broken. I AM NOT broken. A little cracked maybe. But still whole. If I were not whole I do not think I would be able to get out of bed in the morning sometimes.

I've been working quite hard on the parts of me that don't fit anymore. We all have them. Bits of us, or behaviours that once served a good purpose and now are not working so well. And, see, I did not think that in the process of this I would discover just how important some things are that I have spent decades telling myself are insignificant. It would seem that the things I least want to look at are the things I MUST look at. Isn't that always the way? Huh. I don't even know what to DO with these things if DO is the appropriate verb. It would seem like there must be a verb. Turn it over comes to mind. I have, I do. Cause that doesn't seem to be a one time act. New insights keep coming and I think, *Well, I turned that over. So, now what?* I think it allows me to live with painful insights, information on a daily basis but it doesn't mean I am not going to have to DO something with it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not sorry I keep getting this information. Sometimes I even ask for it. Reaching for change seems often to mean that I have to look at painful things about myself. There is an alternative. But it is ugly. I prefer the one in which I reach for the change and deal with looking at myself in the most honest fashion I possibly can. Even when the things I have to look at I thought I had buried deep enough or had been over for enough years to be pretty much in the past. I really thought I had cleaned out my past. But I was kidding myself. All along. Cause I knew there was just that one thing. I was just hoping it could stay in the past. Problem is everywhere ya go, there ya are. And it was still changing my present. In ways that are not healthy. Keeping me from doing things that I knew I needed to do. Altering my present. And I don't want my present altered by childhood abuse. I want my present to be as healthy as I can make it, allow it, whatever.

So, here's me trying to figure out what the hell I do with all this information, that, techinically, I asked for, but find really hard to work with. I WILL know what to do in the right time.

On the *gotta do life* side of things I have walked the dog, completed a section of homework and sorted out lunch for tomorrow. The homework thing pleases me most cause I like to put that off. It doesn't get done that way.

On the side of things that I could deal with or not (still gotta live with them but...)
I set my boundaries with the annoying woman at work today. She was indeed angry. We know this is the reaction to boundaries. Which is difficult at our school cause there is nowhere for me to go to let her have her anger and not have it affect me. But i gave her as much physical space as was possible. I was nearly in tears. Why, why is this so hard? And why does she find it necessary to comment on my appearance, health, food, etc.? I don't suppose it matters in the long run. And let's face it, I will have more opportunities to practise setting boundaries.

See, my M.O. is to set my boundaries in neutral territory and then leave before the anger sets in. I do get phone calls and have to field the anger then, but, it's on the phone and there is that whole hanging up thing. And most of the people i have needed to set boundaries with have been people I really cared about having a future relationship with if they cared to. I don't really care about this woman outside of the fact that we are colleagues. So, this is virgin territory for me. I guess, in the past, I would have just put up with her and decided it didn't matter. But, it does. So, new ways of behaving must be learned.

I think I've said it before: I'm on a learning curve this year.